


walking with my eyes closed

by imaginarypasta



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Not D-Stabilized Compliant, Not Phantom Planet Compliant (Danny Phantom), One Shot, Platonic Gray Ghost
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-11
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:28:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21755281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/imaginarypasta/pseuds/imaginarypasta
Summary: Valerie and Phantom have a conversation when they probably should be fighting.
Relationships: Danny Fenton & Valerie Gray
Comments: 3
Kudos: 110





	walking with my eyes closed

**Author's Note:**

> takes place around junior year, ofc we aren't about that phantom planet or d-stabilized shit.

The soft hum of the thermos being activated still resonated in his hands when her shadow appeared a few feet in front of him. Her stance was poised for attack, gun pointed at his head.

“How goes it, Red?” Danny laughed, hooking the thermos to his belt. “What brings you to this part of town?”

“You just destroyed that bank, Phantom.” Bitterness carried her voice. “You’re lucky the Fentons installed that new alarm system. No one got hurt thanks to them.”

“I wouldn’t have let people get hurt,” he said defensively.

“Like _hell_ you wouldn’t.” She shot a quick blast at him, and he slid to the side in a quick dodge. “You’ve destroyed more city property than I’ve even seen.”

“Hazards of the job. I can’t help it if shit gets a little… rough… sometimes.”

“ _Sometimes_?” She frowned under her visor, sending a quick series of blasts towards him. He dodged them all easily. “As if a day has gone by since you showed up that _something_ wasn’t destroyed.”

“That’s not fair, it’s not _that_ often.”

“It’s often enough.” She said, and that was the last word for a while. She chased him through the sky, beams of ectoenergy soaring through the sky and dissolving in the air pressure. As always, he weaved through her blasts expertly, going intangible only when he _really_ couldn’t avoid them. They still hurt if he got hit like that — they _were_ ghost weapons after all, it only made sense — but less than if he was all there. But he noticed her shots were different... off, somehow.

“Why're you so mad I’m destroying buildings," he huffed. "Who cares about a bit of cracked drywall?"

She stopped mid-air and dropped her gun to her side. Her hand shook along with her shoulders. Danny subconsciously started forward, hand stretched out and prepared for comfort, but the faceless look she sent him a few feet back.

“Do you even know,” Valerie hissed, the shaded visor of her suit masking the tears gathering in her eyes, “how many people you’ve hurt with your stupid, _careless_ ghost fighting?”

Danny shrugged, trying to pull a grin onto his face. “What do you call what you do, then, Red?”

She glowered at him, and he could hear it in her voice, “ _I’m_ taking out a danger to the people I love.”

“I’m not a danger to anyone-” he began, drawing his eyebrows downward.

She cut him off with a dry chuckle, “Shows what I know, trying to reason with a ghost.” Her gun shook in her hands, the tip dangerously close to being raised at him again.

“Hey now, ghosts have minds just like you and me.”

“You _are_ a ghost, Phantom,” she said, annoyance tinging her tone. She’d said it a million times. “And ghosts can’t think — or _feel_ — like _humans_.” Of course, she just _refused_ to understand. His fist rolled into a ball at his side.

“How do you know I’m not protecting people _I_ love?” he whispered. She shouldn’t be able to hear him, definitely not up this high, with the wind whipping around them, but she always did. It was the speakers built into her suit.

Her posture changed a little bit at that. Her gun slowly retracted into the thin sheet of metal coated in even thinner ectoplasm, and she shifted on her board until she hovered in the air, balancing carefully so she could sit. “You can just go,” she sighed. “I don’t feel like fighting today.”

Danny was frozen, not sure what to do. She was his friend, he couldn’t see her hurt. Then again, she wanted to kill him in this form, and probably would if he got close.

“If you’re going to try to kill me _then_ I will.” Her voice went quiet. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed you’ve never thrown an ectoblast at me before.” Her eyes were trained on her feet, dangling over the cityscape.

“V- Red,” he drifted closer to her. “Is- um… what’s wrong?”

She let out a humorless laugh. “The same thing that’s _always_ wrong, Phantom. You.” Her words were as harsh as they always were, but the hurt made everything human in him want to stay. Even if she would turn on him in an instant, he could always slip away. He could ask her in school tomorrow, but from the soft hitches in her breath that sounded awfully akin to crying, he guessed it might not be able to wait that long.

He sat in the air beside her so their legs dangled near each other, but he didn’t breach the boundary of the board. She scoffed. “I’m not sharing my life story with a ghost.”

He let out a breath of air, white bangs floating back up in the air to where they always stood on end. “Then don’t. But at least tell me what’s got you down?”

After a moment, she peered up at him and hissed. “Why don’t you ever _fight back_?” Wide green eyes stared back at her, head cocked slightly.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he admitted after a beat of silence.

“What makes you think you _can_?”

He grinned at that. “I’m a lot tougher than I look.”

She turned her gaze back to her feet. “I know.” She glanced up at him, his eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

“So what-”

“My dad’s in the hospital.” He stopped breathing for a moment and his eyes glazed over. Her posture changed into something more rigid. “Why were you breathing?”

“Y-your dad?” It took a moment for the question to register. “What kind of question is that? Do you expect me to _not_ breathe?”

“Yes. That’s _exactly_ what I expected.” There was a quiet moment between them.

“Your dad. Is he… okay? What happened?”

“ _You_ happened, Phantom. He got hit by some falling debris after one of your stupid fights, broke his leg in two places.” Her hands balled up in fists and then released a few times, ultimately landing open and resting on her thighs. “I have no idea how we’ll afford the medical bills.”

Danny was quiet for a long time. Valerie’s dad… Mr. Gray — who brought the entire class cupcakes on his daughter’s birthday even when they started high school, who brought them on tours of his workplace, who showed him the bathroom the one time he’d gone over to Valerie’s house for their school project — was _hurt_. And it was _his fault_. “I’m… sorry.”

Valerie snorted. “Sorry doesn’t fix my dad’s leg.”

“Yeah, I know. I just… I didn’t realize people were-”

“What? _Actually_ affected by what you do? Well, we _are_.”

His head hung low, hands fidgeting in his lap. He could still see her gaze locked on him.

“Can’t we just stop this thing?”

He snapped his head to look at her. “What thing?”

“The thing where you’re a total menace to the city and I fight you.”

“You can stop fighting me anytime, Va-Red.” He sighed, eyes turned toward the buildings below them. “Really, I’d appreciate it.”

“And let you destroy the city block by block? I don’t think so.” She paused, then explained, “Can’t you stop fighting ghosts?”

He shook his head. “I really _do_ have a good reason for fighting them.” Her small scoff made his eyes narrow. “They hurt people. I know it’s… messy, but I _promise_ it’s worse to just let them roam around torturing people.”

“You know, I actually believe you.” His eyes lit up for a moment. “Chill, I didn’t say I _trusted_ you.”

“No, you didn’t.” He let out a small giggle. “I don’t suppose this means we’re friends?”

She laughed then — perhaps the shock was just enough to make what he said funny. “Friends? _Hardly_ , Phantom. You’re still a ghost.”

“Maybe in another lifetime then,” he mused to himself. She sent him an incredulous look, one he couldn’t see beyond the dark cover of the visor. “Is it too much to ask for a truce, then?”

“You really don’t know when to stop, huh?”

“Guess not." He shrugged. "Maybe I’m just optimistic.”

She shakily stood back up on her board. “I should get going.” He was already standing when she turned to look back at him — well, standing as much as one _could_ when floating in the air. She had to look up at him now, he’d grown quite a bit since she’d first become the Red Huntress, and he wondered if she even noticed. “My dad could probably use the company.”

He just nodded, and she turned to speed away. “Tell him-” His voice got lost in his mind and his hand rubbed at the back of his neck. She paused and peered back at him over his shoulder. “Just tell him I hope he feels better soon.”

“I’m not sure he’ll like Amity Park’s most destructive ghost telling him to have a speedy recovery from the damage _he_ caused.”

Danny flinched at that. “Then just tell him a friend said it.”

Her head cocked to the side, looking for something, he guessed. “We’re not friends.” He grinned, though he knew the sadness was still painted on his face. She snorted at him before soaring off into the blue of the sky.


End file.
